STREET LEVEL/CASTLETON CORNERS; To a Cavalry On Guard Since 1860: At Ease

By ALEX MINDLIN

Published: September 3, 2006

THE maintenance shop in the Staten Island Armory no longer holds the giant tools used to service tanks -- the four-foot-long wrenches, or the 80-pound jumper cables, or the four-man ramrod. By the time Louis Maniscalco, a National Guardsman stationed there, returned last September from Iraq after a 12-month stint, even the tanks themselves were gone.

''The saddest part was that the last tank had to be towed out,'' he said. ''We had cannibalized it for parts.''

Mr. Maniscalco, 34, a thick-necked, crew-cut police officer, sat in a cheery, low-ceilinged clubhouse last week in the basement of the armory, long the headquarters of the First Battalion, 101st Cavalry Division, of the New York Army National Guard. When the battalion was founded in 1860, horses were the favored vehicle, but eventually they were traded in for tanks, which were parked on 19 acres behind the building.

''You couldn't imagine the rush from riding around in that thing,'' Mr. Maniscalco said.

But there will be no more such rushes for him or any of his fellow guardsmen. The battalion, whose history of service includes guarding the perimeter of ground zero after 9/11, has been dismantled.

The armory sits on Manor Road, a prosperous street whose roomy, suburban-style houses are framed by sculpted banks of flowers and elegant, drooping trees. Inside the fortresslike structure, the hallways are flag-decked and lined with mementos: a braided uniform next to a beaver hat, dating to 1899, according to a small display card; a snapshot of soldiers encamped in Central Park before heading off to the Spanish-American War; and a rakish 1938 portrait of a future New York governor, Hugh Carey, then a member of the unit.

The battalion standard, a giant gold flag with an eagle, is not in a display case yet. But for the past two weeks, it has not presided over the battalion commander's office either. The battalion, which had about 300 soldiers in the armory and 200 others stationed elsewhere in the state, was formally extinguished by the state National Guard in a short ceremony on Aug. 20. The decision was part of a streamlining effort, which included a plan to establish a smaller force that will be based in the armory.

Some of the battalion's 300 Staten Island guardsmen have joined the new unit. Others have joined other outfits, and about 75 have left the Guard entirely.

Nevertheless, a recent visitor to the basement club would hardly have suspected that the unit had been dismantled. Two dozen retired and active guardsmen were sitting at the bar or at long tables, smoking and joking among war souvenirs like old C rations and a captured Nazi flag. Many had known one another for decades; unlike soldiers in the Army, who are often reassigned, guardsmen rarely switch units. The bonds that result are strong.

''These guys from Staten Island, they don't really salute each other,'' an Army officer in Iraq told a guardsman last year. ''They hug and kiss each other when they say goodbye.''

Staten Islanders feel warm toward the unit, too, and some are confused by the decision to close it. ''I did see them doing that ceremony, and I thought, what's going on over there?'' said Carole Vetland, a retired health care supervisor who lives opposite the armory. ''Why would they think we don't need tanks, for God's sake?''

Over the years, the battalion has pitched in when disaster has struck. Its men worked in prisons during a state correction officers' strike in 1979, and in countless snowstorms on Staten Island, they ferried doctors and patients to hospitals in their Humvees.

''I don't know how many times we went down to Oakwood Beach to rescue people in floods,'' said Richard Abbate, a retired guardsman. ''You talk to some of the old-timers, they were going out there in the 40's.''

Some Staten Islanders doubt that the armory's new unit -- a tactical one focused on planning instead of combat -- will respond to emergencies as nimbly as its predecessor. ''If you want somebody to shovel snow,'' said Joseph Del Duca, a former major, ''you want a combat guy.''